Sorokin, Vladimir - Day of the Oprichnik

“Now, townsman, we’re going to thrash you!”

And right away, he makes those quotation marks with his fingers.

“We’ll give you a real beaut of a thrashing!”

And again, the quotation marks. People laugh and applaud. Students whistle. The torturers grab the junior clerk and tie him down. Shka Ivanov grins:

“Lie down, lie down, you fucking fruit!”

Executioners and army elders in Russia are allowed to curse. His Majesty exempted them in recognition of their difficult professions.

Danilkov is tied down; Mishanya sits on his legs and pulls down his pants. Judging by the scars, the junior clerk’s ass has been flogged more than once. So this isn’t the first time Danilkov has been steamed . The students whistle and hoot.

“So you see, friend,” Mishanya says, “literature ain’t some sort of motorcycle!”

Shka Ivanov swings the knout and begins to flog him. He does it so well that you get carried away watching. He knows his job, this butcher does, he loves it. The people respect him for work well done. The whip strolls across the junior clerk’s ass: first from the left, then from the right. A neat grate forms on the ass. Danilkov screams and wails; his long nose turns purple.

But it’s time to go. I flick my cigarette butt to a beggar, and turn onto Tverskaya. I’m heading for the concert hall on Strastnoi Boulevard. The star’ s performance is already coming to an end. On my way, I get in touch with the Good Fellows and get the details. They seem to have everything ready. I park the car, and enter by the service door. One of the Good Fellow underlings meets me and escorts me to the auditorium. I sit in the fourth row, on the aisle.

The star is on stage. A people’s storyteller, bard, and epic tale spinner, Savely Ivanovich Artamonov—or, as the people call him, Artamosha. Gray-haired, white-bearded, stately, with a handsome face, though he isn’t young. He sits on his usual fake bench in a black silk peasant shirt with his usual saw in hand. Artamosha runs his bow across the saw—and the saw sings in a delicate voice, bewitching the hall. Under the enchantment of the whine Artamosha continues reciting-singing another of his bylinas in a deep, chesty, unhurried voice:

“Look, our Fox, our Sly one, our lovely Patrikeevna, ay ay is me,

Has come to the Kremlin, to the Kremlin’s low kennel, oh woe is me ay ay…

The kennel built of mighty logs, ay ay.

All the kennel windows are teeny-tiny, ay ay.

All the grates are closed, ay ay.

The kennel doors are thick and oak,

Locked with ten-ton locks and bolts, lovey-dovey mine…”

Artamosha throws back his white head, squeezes his eyes shut, and rolls his stately shoulders. His saw sings. The people in the auditorium are all worked up— toss a match and they’ll explode. Artamosha’s old fans are in the first rows, swaying in time to the saw, wailing along. In the middle of the auditorium, some half-witted woman is moaning a lament. In the back rows they’re sniffling and someone mutters angrily. A difficult audience. How the Good Fellows are going to work here is beyond me.

“Now how shall you open the bolts and locks, Mama dearest?

How shall you unblock the locks and slide the oak, Grandmama dear?

How shall you climb and clamber through the window, my baby bunting?

How shall you dig, my dear little lamb?”

I glance at the audience out of the corner of my eye and look around: the Good Fellows have sat themselves in the center. Obviously the Artamonov followers wouldn’t let them in the first rows. Judging by the quantity of Good Fellow mugs, it seems they decided to take over with numbers, like they usually do. God grant. We’ll keep an eye out, we’ll see…

“She coughs, our Fox, our sly Patrikeevna, she coughs up and up, ay ay,

A key of gold she vomits up,

To open the ten-ton cast-iron lock,

To open the door of oak, ay ay,

She creeps through the kennel, through the Kremlin,

To the hounds in the dark, in the deep,”

The audience begins to sing along: “To the hounds! To the hounds! To the hounds!” The first rows begin to toss and sway; in the back behind they’re shouting, crying, lamenting. Near me a richly dressed fat lady crosses herself, sings and sways. Artamosha plays his saw, his head thrown back so far you can see his Adam’s apple.

“To the hounds dreaming nose to tail, the hounds so sound asleep,

To the hounds well-fed and sleek.

To the hounds so lean, the hounds so young and keen.

She comes to trifle and to fiddle with them, bringing her wanton, whorish fiddling!

Plucking at them to do it, ay ay.

She fiddles and plucks, ay ay, to sate her filthy…”

Just a tiny bit more, and the hall will erupt. I feel like I’m sitting on a powder keg. But the Good Fellows keep quiet, the muttonheads…

“Then the hounds awake, ay ay ay,

Then the hounds wag the sleep from their eyes, ay ay…”

Artamosha opens his eyes, pauses, and scans the audience intently. His saw howls.

“How they throw themselves upon our Fox, upon our Sly Patrikeevna!

How they fuck her in the kennel!

Full of canine excrement!

In the corner, in the stinking corner!

And she’s delighted!

More, come on, more of you!

Hotter, quicker, more!

It won’t be too much for me!

I’ll satisfy you all!

I’m ready for anything!

I have no shame!

All my hounds!

All my hounds!

All my lovely hounds!”

Artamosha’s shout is hoarse, his saw squeals. The hall explodes. In the first rows there are cries: “Let her have it! The bitch! That’s right, the shameless harpy!” Some cross themselves and spit, others wail, some sing along, “All my hounds!” And then, finally, the captain of the Good Fellows, a guy nicknamed Khobot, stands up and throws a rotten tomato at Artamosha. The vegetable hits the bard in the chest. As if by command, all the other Good Fellows stand in the middle of the hall and launch a hail of tomatoes at Artamosha. In a moment the bard is covered in red.

The audience gasps.

And Khobot roars so loud that his kind face turns crimson: “Ooobsceeene!!! Slander against Her Highness!!!”

The Good Fellows, following up Khobot:

“Slander! Subversion! Work and Word!”

The audience freezes. I freeze, too. Artamosha sits on his bench drenched in tomatoes. Suddenly he raises his hand. He stands. His look quiets the Good Fellows like a command. Only Khobot tries to shout “Slander!” but his voice is alone. I already know—they’ve lost. It’s a disaster.

“There they are, the Kremlin hounds!” Artamosha says in a loud voice, pointing toward the center of the audience with a red finger.

A sort of atomic explosion takes place in the hall: everyone attacks the Good Fellows. They clobber them, beat the living daylights out of them. The Good Fellows defend themselves, they fight back, but in vain. The stupid idiots sat in the center to boot, so they’ve ended up surrounded. They’re flattened on all sides. Artamosha stands on the stage covered in tomatoes, like some kind of dripping red St. George the Dragonslayer. The fat lady near me shrieks and pushes toward the thick of things:

“Hounds! Hounds!”

Clear enough. I rise. And leave.

In our difficult and important work things don’t always turn out right. My fault this time—I didn’t instruct them, didn’t keep an eye on them. Didn’t anticipate or warn them. Well, there was no time—I was fighting for the Road. That’s how I justify it to Batya. When it’s over I want to drop by to see Khobot, and bop him on the head, but I feel sorry for him—he’s had enough for one day. From the people.

Hmmm…Artamosha sure gets them worked up. But he’s playing with fire. He’s gone overboard. Gone so far that it’s time to snuff him out. The scoundrel began as a genuine bard. At first he sang traditional Russian epics. About the deeds of Ilya Muromets, Buslai, Solovei Budimirovich. He became famous all across New Rus. Made a good living. Set himself up with two houses. Acquired high-placed patrons. He could have gone on living and living, wallowing in his popularity, but no—something got into him. He began to sing exposés of morals and manners. Not just of anyone, but of Her Highness. As they say, you couldn’t fall higher. And Her Highness…well, that’s a whole story in itself. A bitter one.